The doctor just told my daughter that she has human papillomavirus (HPV), which he says is a sexually transmitted disease (STD). She insists that it can’t be true because she has never had sex and is still a virgin.

Queenie, is she lying about being a virgin or is the doctor wrong or what?—Confused mother

Dear Confused mother,

HPV can be contracted through sexual contact short of actual intercourse – heavy petting, or frottage (rubbing the sex organs against each other without complete penetration) – so your daughter may still be technically a virgin and yet have the infection.

And no, she could not have gotten it from an infected toilet seat, as popular mythology would have it, unless an infected person had actually rubbed their private parts on the seat rather than merely sitting down on it and your daughter had done the same immediately thereafter.